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Social Media Success

One of the clients I provide social media services for recently met a gentleman who was new in her field of business. This gentleman had started a Facebook page for his business and was bragging to her how “successful” he had been with his Facebook page.

My client sent me a link to the gentleman’s Facebook page. After looking at his page, I asked my client what was meant by “successful?”

Was he referring to the number of people who “liked” his business page? Was he referring to the number of posts he made to his wall each day? Was he talking about the types of messages he posted? Was he referring to the number of comments he received to those posts? Or, did he mean that he had increased sales as a result of his Facebook page?

My client did not know the answer, but knew that she wanted to increase the number of fans on her Facebook page. By the way, the gentleman who was having such “great” success on Facebook only had 25 more fans than my client.

Attracting fans on your Facebook, Twitter, or other social networking site is onlythe beginning of social media success. The key challenge in social media success is keeping those fans interested and engaged and turning them into advocates for what you are selling or offering.

Cone, a social media marketing agency, recently conducted a survey to find out what social media users expect from businesses that they follow. Here is some of what they found out:

77 percent wanted to be offered a discount or coupon for services and products

46 percent wanted customer service

28 percent wanted to be entertained

What the survey found was that what people were not looking for was equally relevant. The top two reasons social media users said they stopped following businesses online tied at 58 percent. These two reasons were businesses sending out too many messages and businesses acting irresponsibly. A close second, at 53 percent, complained that the content posted by the business was irrelevant.

So, if you want to be successful with your social media efforts, keep in mind that too much content or the wrong kind of content will drive consumers away. Post a couple times a day (peak usage times for Facebook are 11am, 3pm, and 8pm on weekdays) and keep your content relevant to your products. In essence, don’t overdo it.